As an 8 year old boy I used to think about this a lot. I recall that I was given detention after school for wrestling outside in recess. When detention was over, the principal asked me if I would ever do it again. And I said “yeah probably”.
So then I got more detention. Next time she asked if I would do it again I had learned my lesson.
I don’t think I came away with clear rules about when to lie vs not lie, but I knew the answer couldn’t be never lie.
At a startup I worked we were preparing to release a new feature where I was intimately involved( design and implementation). For the marketing copy the CEO wanted to claim the feature did X. I pointed out that it didn't, assuming he just didn't realize it. He then gave an explanation of how it kind of did X when seen a certain way. Nope, I said, not even that. Not even close and I explained what we'd need to do for X to be possible. His final word was 'if your marketing claims don't make you a little uncomfortable you're not doing it right.'
The problem with allowing lies is like Gresham's law: "bad money drives out good", fraud drives out honesty, anyone unwilling to lie is frozen out and not only all your employees but all your leaders are liars. This has huge direct costs, of course, but the indirect costs are even greater, you now have a low-trust society, so what could be a handshake deal or one-page contract turns into a million dollars and months of due diligence which still don't catch the most diligent frauds.
The line has to be drawn not at the deliberate material falsehood, but at not striving scrupulously to know the truth and actually conveying the whole meaning of one's understanding of the truth to others. In other words, giving the other person a false impression, whether by claiming false certainty, presenting the truth in a way that will be disbelieved, omitting material facts or outright lying are all deceptive and reflect untrustworthiness.
Thank you for this detailed article on an important topic. A few additions:
Some lies have more consequences than others. Our society actually values some lies (e.g. lies that allow everyone to save face and don't create any victim). I take that you are focusing here on lies that carry meaningful consequences.
Lying is a behavioral habit to an extent: some of us lie more, some of us less. This matters a lot, because it may become part of your brand, and i doubt anyone wants to be branded as a liar.
Lying is putting your credibility at risk. Is it worth it? What's the next best available alternative? Could there actually be a better alternative? In my experience, there typically is, but feel free to try me.
If I remember well, a world-class liar once told me: "it's only a lie if you get caught". I also remember them asking me the difference between a great and an ok liar: "a great liar never lies"
There is a fundamental difference between taking about what was/is and what will be. Unless speaking with an accredited fortune teller, nobody should take anything one says about the future as anything but a dream that may or may not become reality.
Good points. I used to believe the last bit rather strenuously but the delta between facts just as-is and interpretations of the past are not nearly as clear cut as they used to seem, which makes even talking about the past not as easy.
An interesting anecdote I have comes from the perspective of "engineer that worked closely with over a dozen startup founders": Usually when I give probabilities they end up being turned to ~100% or ~0% based on whether or not they fit the narrative.
"Yes, I think this NLP product can be done within a month or two, I'd say 50-60% chance"
"No, I don't think I can make it run on ARM, I mean, I'm not sure, but I'm like 2/3rds certain"
Somehow gets turned into: Within a month we'll have this NLP tool available for Android!
This is actually fine, in the sense of a 1/6 chance of getting a nice product is actually ok. If you approach 3,4,5,6, 10 ideas that way, chances are one will work.
My question is really "why not say there's a 1/6 chance it will work?", after all investors/early-customers/employees understand that new products are risky business and adjust accordingly.
I assume it's a cultural thing where people don't deal well with probabilities, which lead to assigning a probability being equivalent to "this guy doesn't think he can do it", because people only assigned probabilities to things that were basically impossible, and set numbers way too high.
But it seems likely that the culture will shift away from that in the near future.
I'm a little more pessimistic but I hope so. Cultural norms have massive staying power. And the probability point you said is very true - nuances get stripped out as communication lengthens and at some point someone makes a decision on the basis of a 60/40 probability and once a decision is taken they might as well think of it as 100 ...
Or, tell the truth better. Say that something *can* be, instead of *is*. Tell it convincingly, sure, but don't lie when your conscience pings. Otherwise you might lose it.
Drawing the line at zero might be better then trying to find it, surely when it defines the cornerstone of human interaction - trust.
Zero def is an easier schelling point in conception, but in practice it feels a slope where folks try and find that right medium, usually mediated by their conscience as you put it.
As an 8 year old boy I used to think about this a lot. I recall that I was given detention after school for wrestling outside in recess. When detention was over, the principal asked me if I would ever do it again. And I said “yeah probably”.
So then I got more detention. Next time she asked if I would do it again I had learned my lesson.
I don’t think I came away with clear rules about when to lie vs not lie, but I knew the answer couldn’t be never lie.
tragedy of commons/externality framework should be included in your analysis.
i'm no kantian but the bar for lying should be fairly high.
What is the bar is a pretty hard question …
At a startup I worked we were preparing to release a new feature where I was intimately involved( design and implementation). For the marketing copy the CEO wanted to claim the feature did X. I pointed out that it didn't, assuming he just didn't realize it. He then gave an explanation of how it kind of did X when seen a certain way. Nope, I said, not even that. Not even close and I explained what we'd need to do for X to be possible. His final word was 'if your marketing claims don't make you a little uncomfortable you're not doing it right.'
Definitely not on board with that approach.
The problem with allowing lies is like Gresham's law: "bad money drives out good", fraud drives out honesty, anyone unwilling to lie is frozen out and not only all your employees but all your leaders are liars. This has huge direct costs, of course, but the indirect costs are even greater, you now have a low-trust society, so what could be a handshake deal or one-page contract turns into a million dollars and months of due diligence which still don't catch the most diligent frauds.
The line has to be drawn not at the deliberate material falsehood, but at not striving scrupulously to know the truth and actually conveying the whole meaning of one's understanding of the truth to others. In other words, giving the other person a false impression, whether by claiming false certainty, presenting the truth in a way that will be disbelieved, omitting material facts or outright lying are all deceptive and reflect untrustworthiness.
Thank you for this detailed article on an important topic. A few additions:
Some lies have more consequences than others. Our society actually values some lies (e.g. lies that allow everyone to save face and don't create any victim). I take that you are focusing here on lies that carry meaningful consequences.
Lying is a behavioral habit to an extent: some of us lie more, some of us less. This matters a lot, because it may become part of your brand, and i doubt anyone wants to be branded as a liar.
Lying is putting your credibility at risk. Is it worth it? What's the next best available alternative? Could there actually be a better alternative? In my experience, there typically is, but feel free to try me.
If I remember well, a world-class liar once told me: "it's only a lie if you get caught". I also remember them asking me the difference between a great and an ok liar: "a great liar never lies"
There is a fundamental difference between taking about what was/is and what will be. Unless speaking with an accredited fortune teller, nobody should take anything one says about the future as anything but a dream that may or may not become reality.
Good points. I used to believe the last bit rather strenuously but the delta between facts just as-is and interpretations of the past are not nearly as clear cut as they used to seem, which makes even talking about the past not as easy.
Indeed. Thank you for sharing.,
An interesting anecdote I have comes from the perspective of "engineer that worked closely with over a dozen startup founders": Usually when I give probabilities they end up being turned to ~100% or ~0% based on whether or not they fit the narrative.
"Yes, I think this NLP product can be done within a month or two, I'd say 50-60% chance"
"No, I don't think I can make it run on ARM, I mean, I'm not sure, but I'm like 2/3rds certain"
Somehow gets turned into: Within a month we'll have this NLP tool available for Android!
This is actually fine, in the sense of a 1/6 chance of getting a nice product is actually ok. If you approach 3,4,5,6, 10 ideas that way, chances are one will work.
My question is really "why not say there's a 1/6 chance it will work?", after all investors/early-customers/employees understand that new products are risky business and adjust accordingly.
I assume it's a cultural thing where people don't deal well with probabilities, which lead to assigning a probability being equivalent to "this guy doesn't think he can do it", because people only assigned probabilities to things that were basically impossible, and set numbers way too high.
But it seems likely that the culture will shift away from that in the near future.
I'm a little more pessimistic but I hope so. Cultural norms have massive staying power. And the probability point you said is very true - nuances get stripped out as communication lengthens and at some point someone makes a decision on the basis of a 60/40 probability and once a decision is taken they might as well think of it as 100 ...
Or, tell the truth better. Say that something *can* be, instead of *is*. Tell it convincingly, sure, but don't lie when your conscience pings. Otherwise you might lose it.
Drawing the line at zero might be better then trying to find it, surely when it defines the cornerstone of human interaction - trust.
Zero def is an easier schelling point in conception, but in practice it feels a slope where folks try and find that right medium, usually mediated by their conscience as you put it.